Hey everyone -

I think I've finally gathered enough interest amongst friends to start a home poker tournament. It's going to be super small stakes and will most likely be a monthly game.

I'm looking for interesting ideas to keep people coming back and to keep everyone competitive. Should we keep a running scoreboard each month for those who finish 1st, 2nd, and 3rd?

I'm thinking of having a end of the year tournament. Should the monthly 1st/2nd/3rd placed get some bonus? Another idea I'm thinking is to have a weekly $1 fee for, say, each $10 buy in. Making it $11 total to buy in. Should I have a weekly challenge or high hand for all the $1s? Or should I keep the $1s and roll it into the pot for the end of the year tournament?

Thanks for any feedback. Any other ideas are obviously welcome, too.

Also, I apologize if this information is posted somewhere else that I missed.

My home game background: I built, hosted, and ran a weekly home game tournament (very similar to what you mention here) from 2005 - 2013. Sometime around 2013 poker popularity (at least in my area) dropped off and the game fell apart. In December 2015 an opportunity fell in my lap and now I run a weekly 1/2 cash game. When I put together the core group that sustained our weekly tournament for so long, the process came with a lot of trial and error, as I didn't have a "business model" to work off of. I was brand new to poker (i had never played in a B&M casino), as were most of my group. I am going to give you some advice that is based on my experience.

1) The single most important piece of advice I can offer about hosting a game is that your player pool (invite list) has to constantly be growing. Some players will show "interest" and never ever show up to a game. Some players will never win, get frustrated, and quit showing up. Some players will have their kitchen pass revoked and will be forced to quit playing. For a multitude of reasons, your original group will shrink, and you'll want to be able to fill in those gaps. There should be a vetting process for new players, however. You only want to allow in trustworthy players and players that will fit in with the dynamic of your group.

2) You will have a core group of players that are your regulars. Cater to these players. Let these players help in the decision making process. This core group is going to be your lifeblood.

3) Invest in a nice setup (if not initially, then after your game gets established). Buy a decent table (with plenty of room). Buy some comfortable chairs. Buy a decent set of chips. Buy some premium cards (I like Copags). There is something to be said about the atmosphere of the game. As Jack Binion says, "make it right for the gambler."

4) Discuss with your core group what type of game they think will work best and try it out. For example, your group may want to play a deep stack freeze-out tournament. They may prefer a re-buy tournament. Or maybe they'd rather play 2-3 turbo tournaments on game night. Y'all may even decide that a low stakes cash game is what works best. Be willing to try out different formats to find what works best. You won't always make everyone happy, but you have to make the majority happy, or the game will fold.

5) As the host, it is your responsibility to send out the invites for each game and decide if the game makes or not. In my experience, you have to really stay on top of this. Send the initial invite. Keep a list of confirmations. For those that don't reply, keep asking until you get an answer. It is equally as frustrating when a player that didn't reserve a seat shows up unexpectedly as it is when a confirmed player pulls a no-show. Decide what your threshold is for the game to make or not. I personally will not start a cash game with less than 8 confirmed starters, as I have players that drive over an hour to come play and I will not risk having them drive that far to play in a short-handed game. If a player confirms and pulls a no-show multiple times, don't be afraid to take him off the invite list. Let your players know the importance of being on time. I used to give bonus chips to all players that were seated at the designated start time.

6) Know the rules of poker and enforce those rules. Our weekly game was a $20 buy-in tournament. No big deal, right? That $20 buy-in tournament turned into a training ground for players new to poker and players not quite old enough to go to the local casinos. By knowing and enforcing the rules of poker (angle shooting, collusion, OPTAH, etc...), we created a seamless transition into the casino for our underage and newbie players. When they were in an actual card room, it was all second nature. Trust me when I tell you that your players will appreciate a well-ran, well-managed game, no matter the stakes.

I'm sure I'll add more to this list later on. This is what I could think of off the top of my head...

Good stuff above. I second the "get nice chips and cards" but only once you know it'll be worth the investment (meaning your group is on its way to becoming regular). My group has 2 hosts: one guy is weelky and has a convenient location but everyone coplains about his bare bones set-up. I host sporadically, am a bit out of the way, but I have chairs, tabletop, copags, etc. which is way better. I didn't buy everything at the start, simply acquired it once I knew/decided each thing was worth the money. (I'd go tabletop first, then cards, then chips. BTW if there is a casino near you, all the ones around here give out free "punched" decks that'll be way better than dollar store junk. And obv check craigslist, this type of equipment is often available used.)

I also 100% agree with the "know and apply casino rules"; just like Meat said, our group which started at $15 SnG and $25 cash games helped launch me into the casino (where I now play 1/3 and 2/5). Others now play occasionaly1/3 as well.

I wouldn't worry about leaderboard type stuff just yet. It's fun, but at this point, you're building something you don't know if the group needs or wants just yet.

I agree with sw on the leaderboard/league type stuff. That can come later, after your game has become well established. For the first good while, focus on making games and figuring out who your core players will be.

I have been part of a homegame league for 13 years. We have ranged from 20-40 players. We play every 7 weeks.

Format:
$65 buyin($50 prize pool + $5 bounty + $10 points/championship)

To buyin to the league that costs $60. We take that and the $10 per entry per tournament and put that into a pool of money. Half of the money is for total points for the year 1st, 2nd & 3rd. The other half of the pool money goes the yearend Championship tournament that you have to qualify. (9 spots qualify) You get an automatic bid if you win a tournament. The other spots are filled by high point people.

It is a nice league. We allow non-members to play each tournament if they want. They still kick in the $10 for the pool money.

Lots of good advice all around here, but I gotta disagree with this one.

Plastic cards can be found pretty cheap—like $15–20 for two decks of Desjgn or Copag—and they'll last much longer than paper cards as long as you don't subject them to abuse or extreme temperatures. Personally, I'd go with that out of the gate.

But if you're not ready for plastic or you just want to use paper cards, go with fresh decks of Bicycle, Bee, or another reputable brand. Skip the dollar-store junk, true, but also skip the "punched" casino decks.

In my experience, with canceled casino cards, you're running a big risk of getting a deck that is incomplete or has marked cards in it (often due to the markers they use hitting the cards' edges a little differently, or the hole/slice hitting cards at different angles). They're fine for playing Go Fish with a kid, but not for playing anything where money is involved.

Really appreciate all the feedback guys.

You could run your games on an app for much cheaper than the price of cards or chips. This might also expand your game. If someone cannot make it to your physical location, they could play on the app.

This sounds like a horrible idea...

Don't reward the best players (i.e. high 1st price) but the fish (i.e. more prizes). As long as you have fish, you'll have players.

You can play twice as many hands per hour and never misdeal. No need for tables. Sit wherever you want. Don't knock it til you try it.

And that's a great sell if the entire audience is made up of grinders who essentially want to play online poker (worst home game ever). However, it takes the social aspect out of the game, and it opens it up to significant risk of collusion, or at least the appearance of impropriety.

Plus, it's just not the same. A big part of poker for many people is the tangible aspect of handling chips, peeling up the cards, and physically pulling down big pots. Taking those things away takes a lot of fun out of the game.

I couldn't agree more. In my opinion, online or "app" poker can NEVER replace an actual live game.

To each their own. There is nothing stopping 2 determined people from colluding right in front of your face. At least with the app, you can look at detailed hand history and figure it out. You guys sound like older guys. I guess it is all younger guys playing like this. If I could find someone with a higher stakes game, I would never go back to chips and cards. Watching people fumble around that cannot deal and never could is painful to watch and endure. The only thing I do agree on is the social aspect. And in that regard, I do prefer to be in person while playing, its just the speed and accuracy of an app that I find irreplaceable.

Sure, two determined people with some amount of skill and ability to recognize how they can take advantage of the situation without being super-obvious. With the app, those two people could just be texting or on the phone with each other the whole time, openly telling each other their hole cards, telling each other to take specific actions, etc. Even amateur morons could find profitable ways to cheat.

To discover this via hand history would take a lot of sessions worth of data, and even when you prove it, what then? Boot the guys from the game and wait for the next few cheats to come along? It's still an open door to cheating, and it's a lot more enticing to a cheat to do so in private from behind a device than to cultivate social relationships in person to do it.

That is, if you could find a higher stakes game, which is to say probably never, Recreational players playing for significant money typically want the actual experience, and they often won't be willing to take the risks I've outlined here due to the sums involved.

Say what you want about "older guys," but I've found that the major downside to playing with "younger guys" is that it's hard to get a group of them to consistently play poker any higher than super-micro-stakes. Few of them have the discretionary funds to do it.

The one advantage this app idea offers is that you can play with people over large geographical distances. I know groups of friends who use traditional online poker sites to do this, who otherwise would rarely if ever play poker together. But if we're talking about a home game where people live relatively close to each other, I think the cons far outweigh the pros.

There is nothing stopping people at the WSOP from texting each other. They are all on their phones. Every casino I go to has people on their phone while simultaneously playing. If you have the sound on, like we all do, you would hear the messages and/or see them texting. They would be doing hand motions not needed to play the app. Every way you can cheat on a phone app can be done in a live game the same way. Not to mention, you could make the hand timer super quick and not give cheaters enough time to process the info. Like I said, man, to each their own. You keep playing 20-25 hands per hour, and I will play 50-60. If you need everyone in the same room, I get that, but you will never stop collusion.

For me personally, I don't feel more accomplished by playing an astronomical number of hands (which is only achieved by multi-tabling online). There is just something about being at an actual poker table, with actual poker chips, handling actual cards, and interacting with the other players and dealer that makes the entire experience enjoyable. As for being "older", I am 39. I started playing live poker in 2005 and started playing online sometime shortly thereafter. Online poker was alright (meh), but I never remotely enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed playing live. I haven't played online since Black Friday.

I respect Buzz Kill's desire to play online. His reasoning suits him. I'm sure there is a great volume of players that prefer playing online or via an app as opposed to playing live. I'm not part of that group. If I'm playing, I'm in a brick-and-mortar card room or at a casino.

I find myself not having trust in electronic games be it online, app, or those electronically dealt live tables. The super user scandals proved that it can all be manipulated. True, live poker has it's share of cheating, but I'll take my chances with a live dealer over computer software any day of the week.

Just my two cents...

Homegames are just as much about getting out of the house and seeing the guys as it is about making money. We have a few guys that have to be lifetime losers in our 13 years, but they keep coming back. The tournament format is great for them as it limits their losses. These guys don't really improve and don't think about poker much between games.

The funny thing is when we started like 13 years ago with a $65 buyin that was somewhat serious money to some. Not super serious, but you wouldn't want to drop that amount each week. Now we are older and to most of us $65 doesn't make us think twice. That being said most everyone plays to win and the overall skill in the game is pretty solid. We no longer have totally clueless folks.

Some other hints:

1. Cards. Use the plastic cards (Kem, Copag, etc.); do not use paper decks. The plastic cards will last longer and are much more difficult to permanently damage. Have at least one setup (two decks) per table, plus at least one spare setup. You never know when there will be a problem with one of the decks - being able to put a fresh setup in play will keep the game moving, and your guests will appreciate it. Make it a rule that a cut card must always be used - no exceptions. Always inspect the cards before the game starts.

2. Chips. Consider getting two contrasting sets of chips, one to use for cash games and one to use for tournaments. My cash game set consists of 100 25¢, 200 $1, 200 $5, and 100 $25 chips, which allows for games as small as 25¢/25¢ and would be adequate for $1/$2 games (if I allow $100 bills on the table to play). Also, make sure you have enough chips to make for a good tournament. My tournament set consists of 200 chips each of denominations of 100, 500, 1k, 5k, and 25k; I usually go with a starting stack of 150k and starting blinds of 300/600.

3. Laptop or tablet computer. If you run a tournament, a laptop or tablet computer with the correct software will do very nicely for you as a tournament clock.

4. Bank. Have enough small bills and coinage for payouts in cash games (25¢, $1, $5; $20 if hosting a higher stakes games). If you play in your home game, consider using small bills for your buy in. Don’t worry about supply of larger bills; your guests’ buy ins will provide the larger denominations.

5. Use standard rules and enforce them consistently and fairly. When I am hosting, I do cap the buy in for no-limit and pot-limit games (usually at about 100 big blinds); I allow running it multiple times in cash games; I don’t allow straddles in smaller games; I use a dead-button rule in cash games; in fixed-limit games, I allow a bet and four raises; I will use TDA rules in tournament play.

And I respect the desire to play in person. I also prefer this. Its just the automation that I prefer. I know what you mean about the scandals but with an app, everyone is on the same playing field. You could always go create your own digital poker room and test it for exploits. The app sort of creates a standard of play.

Look at what rzw is suggesting. If you are a beginner, that is quite the investment. Tourney software, plastic cards, 2 sets of chips, then you need a table or many tables. My friend got his entire game going for $5 on this app. And you can multi table and boost hands per hour to well over 100. And to me, the hands per hour is a big deal because I get so bored and start to play lower quality hands instead of waiting for something better.

I personally think that unless you are investing in a permanent dealer with a shuffler and custom chips, you are also opening yourself up to cheaters. Without a significant investment, there is always a way to cheat. Mechanics are real. I know one and that's part of the reason I feel this way.

Again, this is just how I feel.

Buzz, I think we all respect your desire for the automation. But you're making your 2p2 debut in a forum designed specifically and exactly for people who like to play in home games, in an actual home, with real chips and cards and beer and all the rest. I don't really understand how this is hard to understand.

There's tons of forums on 2p2 that will talk about the internets with you. Some of us even participate there as well.

I am talking about a home game, live and in person. Playing with chips and cards is your definition of what it has to be. The OP asked for suggestions on how to run a $10 game and we got people suggesting he should make a $400 investment in equipment. I was just trying to suggest something cheaper.

http://www.homepokertourney.com/poke..._structure.htm

I run a tournament that plays 4 times a year. Built my own table. 4x6 oval with padded surface and padded rail. I wouldn't go with a 4x8 if self dealt. We fit 8 comfortably and have done 9 without problems. Don't use that suited speed cloth crap......complete junk and feels like sandpaper. I used nylon velvet speed cloth. And a table with racetrack is junk as well (picking up cards or shuffling chips is a nightmare). I use slide in cup holders. I use Flex One folding chairs......they are cheap but nice.....plastic flexes and mesh for circulation. They are comfortable. Get good cards.......Modiano 100% plastic is what we use. Have Copag's too but Modiano are better. Majestic chip set is nice. We started with a cut card but people got lazy and we don't use one anymore. Run a poker timer on a laptop. And I was stickler on using standard rules (oversize chip, big chips in front, etc.) so transition between casino would be seamless.

We usually play 3 games in a night. Pretty fast structure......1500 in chips, 10/20 starting blinds, 75BB stacks, 15 minute levels.